This was the race that almost never was. Pre-race preparation the week before the race seemed fairly simple, some basic preventative maintenance bits:-
Replacing the engine mounts meant raising the engine off the chassis, a jack under the sump does the trick nicely, however we hadn't noticed that the air hoses we still attached to the chassis and managed to rip one of the hoses
Replacing the timing belt went sweetly until we were attaching the crankshaft balance wheel and sheared a bolt in the crankshaft, more parts required, and some painful drilling out
The order went into the local BMW garage for replacement bolts, air hoses and while we were at it, water pump and all the water hoses. Delivery is normally next day and we had 5 days until the race so shouldn't be a major problem (or so we thought)
For the first time ever the BMW Garage let us down and only delivered the parts on Friday morning, leaving us 24 hours until the race. I shot home at lunchtime to check the parts and quickly threw the airhoses on and we had a working engine. Cooling was still a concern as we were running on the old hoses which we'd had to play around with lots to get the timing belt in. These water hoses are probably 10-15 years old and so very brittle and haggered , however we were going to have to run with what we had as there was no time to replace all the hoses and rebleed the entire system.
Getting home after work on Friday I set to to get the car onto the trailer ready for travelling down to Lydden that evening I jump in the car, start the engine no problems, then put my foot on the clutch only for it to travel into the footwell. No clutch! This was going to make racing interesting! There was nothing we could do other than push the car onto the trailer and hope we could fix the fault Saturday morning before qualifying, I had some clutch spares which I'd bought a few months previously 'just in case' so we did at least have some spares.
An early start saturday morning and some swearing, banging and helpful tips from Jez (thanks Jez) and we'd replaced the clutch master cylinder and got a clutch back, the cooling system seemed to be ok but we didn't have time to change the hoses, only shoving it onto the racetrack would prove whether it would hold.
The SELOC BMW Challenge qualifying went badly, I just couldn't find space on the track to get a quick lap in, I suspect out of 15 minutes of qualifying I probably managed 1 or 2 quickish laps and qualified in 11th place. This was still my best qualifying position of the year so I was hopeful of a better place come the race as I knew I could go quicker.
Mixing with mini's during the South East Saloon Challenge qualifying
Qualifying for the South East Saloons Challenge went much better, there was a few less cars on the track and I managed to get some consistant quick laps in, the improved space showed in the qualifying time which was nearly a full second quicker than I'd qualified for the SELOC race, 8th place on the grid. If I'd done the same time in the SELOC qualifying I'd have been in 7th place on the grid for the start.
Total confusion on the startline by me, for some reason I mixed up the 5 minute board and found myself in neutral contemplating my nails as the red lights went out, I immediately lost 3 places but pulled one back on the way around the first corner and settled into the race routine. I have utterly no memory of the next overtake, I must have done it somewhere but its a total mystery to me, I can't even remember who it was! Next man up was Dave Arrundale, I followed him for a couple of laps but just couldn't find a way through, then dave made a mistake at Devils Elbow which gave me the chance to slip up the inside into the hairpin, I held the inside line and managed to power down Hairy Hill and turn in first into paddock to keep the place.
By now I was getting worried about fuel, for some reason the fuel guage had dropped substantially from when we filled it in the paddock to when we arrived on the startline, the fuel guage was now propped on the lower stop and I hadn't got a clue how much longer the car would keep going. Looking ahead I could see Nigel Goater in the distance, but a full straight lengths ahead, I had no idea of how many laps were left but I couldn't believe it would be enough to catch Nigel and pass him so decided to try and short shift and conserve fuel.
With a couple of laps to go (so it turns out, although I didn't know at the time), I could see a huge cloud of dust from Devils Elbow, as I come around it Paul Golding had spun again at his favourite spot and he was recovering the car on the way up to the hairpin, I almost managed to get up his inside but he got back on the power again and we tussled for the next lap fighting for 9th place. The last lap board came up and suddenly the race is stopped (red-flagged), turning around the hairpin I could see a BMW on its side at the bottom of paddock, my heart was in my mouth, paddock corner is not the place you want to be crashing at. The marshall told me Jez Breaker had done a 3 tumble roll but had walked away from it, an immense relief and a sobering vision!
A short clip of the incident (zip file - 3.6Mbytes)
We waited on the track for a while while waiting for the marshalls to clear the wreckage of Jez's car. The marshalls called us back into the cars, the race was classified as complete and we were told to go down an access road back to the paddock. When I got back into the car Paul Golding pointed to a quickly expanding puddle of fluid coming from under the car followed by large amounts of steam from the front grill, the cooling system had given up! This was followed by a rather embarassing push off the track for the altoHiway car followed by a tow to the paddock.
Final result, I finished 10th, my best place of the season so far and my first BMW Seloc Challenge point, at last I'm on the board! Also, my qualifying in the 2nd race gave me big hopes of more improvements next time out.
Getting the car to the paddock we lifted off the bonnet and concerningly couldn't see where the steam is coming from, all the water hoses seem ok and we immediately started thinking its a blown gasket in the engine somewhere with all the possibilities of serious engine damage which that causes. Phil at last spotted a small hole in on of the water hoses hidden under the engine, we might be alright but the engine coolant was way too hot to replace the hoses within the 15 minutes we had before the next race. Unfortunately, my best qualifying time of the season so far went to waste as we were unable to race, we sadly pushed the dead BMW onto the trailer and I resolved to do the diagnosing of the fault on Sunday at home.
On Sunday I replaced all the water hoses, drained the coolant system and refilled it, the car still worked and no water in the oil so it looks like we're up and running and ready for the next tough double race weekend on the 10th July at Lydden followed by an overnight run to race at Le Croix on the 12th July.
Thanks to Matt Seldon for the video clip
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